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Encouragement

There I was, two years after my youngest had graduated from high school, walking through the annual NCHE Book Fair. This was the third NCHE conference that I’d attended with no one to buy for and nowhere to apply my new knowledge from all the wonderful workshops. What torture!

Most people make their New Year’s resolutions in January. I make mine in August. The start-up of the new homeschool year is a much bigger event to me than the change of calendar years....This year, however, I will try to do things differently. The Lord spoke a little four-word sentence into my heart as I read my daily devotional book, God Calling, a few weeks ago. “Do less, achieve more.”

As I sat watching the movie with one of my best friends, a non-homeschooling mom, I became uncomfortably aware of the similarities between raising a son in an underground bomb shelter and raising him in a homeschooling environment.

“It's tempting to think at graduation time that your education is over. Nothing could be further from the truth. One hundred years ago people thought of work as a job. Fifty years ago, work became a career. In the future, work for the most successful among us will be an exercise in lifelong learning.”

When our youngest son was about two years old, he put just about every toy he owned in a backpack. Then he put on the backpack. Then he fell over backwards! The weight of all his “stuff” stopped our little boy in his tracks. I remember laughing at the picture, and then realizing that it was a graphic illustration of what happens to so many homeschooling families.

When considering whether or not to place my child in a Christian school or to homeschool, I made it a matter of prayer—much prayer....I felt sure He would not say to homeschool. I didn't want to homeschool my children, nor did I think I would be good at it. Then He began to make it “abundantly clear.”